Suggestion for creating editable Word reports (not using report builder)

[AngelaB]

Hello

I'm crowd sourcing suggestions for creating editable reports in Word that don't use report builder. A bit of background for context. I do all of the reporting across our state for a hospital program. Our sites input data into a centralised data management system (REDCap), I then export this to Power BI for reporting purposes. The reporting fields and visualisations are standardised, but our sites like to tailor the reports, so I provide the report in Word. Ideally I'd use Power BI Report Builder to do this, but for the life of me I can't get it to work (even with the help of Copilot), so I've given up on this as a solution.

Currently I'm copying each visualisation from Power BI using the 'copy as image' function and pasting into word. This is quite time consuming because of the rendering time and I can't control the formatting of the output. How would you do it?

Thanks!

[Rob_p21]

Ignore my last reply, I realise you said no report builder.

[Rob_p21]

Could you look into setting up paginated reports? Can make these to PDF and send via email using power automate?

Set a template and you can set things like hospital name and stuff at the top?

I haven't done much with these reports, but I think it could fit your requirements.

That will fully automate the whole process as well.

[AngelaB]

Thanks Rob, I wish I could use Report Builder... it's beating me at the moment and I seemingly can't dedicate enough time to it to work it out.

[jaineshp · Accepted solution]

Hey @AngelaB,

A few practical options you could try:

• Use PowerPoint as a middle step – export visuals directly from Power BI to PowerPoint, then copy into Word. The formatting tends to hold better than “copy as image.”

• Publish to PDF, then convert to Word – gives a quick editable version without manually copying each visual.

• Export tables to Excel – then link/insert into Word, so numbers stay editable while you drop in visuals separately.

• Set up Word templates – keep placeholders for visuals and just replace/update each month, rather than re-formatting.

• Consider Office add-ins like Power BI Tiles Pro – lets you embed live or refreshed visuals into Word/PowerPoint.

Keeps things editable while cutting down on copy-paste time.

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Best Regards,
Jainesh Poojara | Power BI Developer

[AngelaB]

Thanks Jainesh, the PowerPoint as a middle step saves a lot of time in exporting (my reports are already templated in Word). I've had to restructure the Power BI reports so that each table is on a new tab, but this works well! I will also look into the Power BI Tiles Pro option, thank you.